Monkey goes to the Shaftas

It was a tired and emotional night in more ways than one at this year's Shaftas, which marked its 20th anniversary in suitable style. Rather like the Pink Floyd reunion at Live 8, but without Roger Waters, last night's event saw the reunion of Geoff Baker and Pat Codd, who famously cooked up the Daily Star splash "Princess Margaret to appear in Crossroads" that started the whole thing off. "Absolute cobblers, of course," said host Johnny Vaughan. "Yet from that small but perfectly formed flyer a showbiz awards was born."

Leg-up for Hoare Being a 20th birthday and all that, guests were treated to a lovingly assembled montage of the very worst in tabloid journalism of the last two decades, all put together to Queen's We are the Champions. There was Jade Goody blinded in an horrific scissors accident, Paul and Heather McCartney giving birth to a boy in the Mirror, which then decided it was a girl, and of course Bubbles the Chimp giving evidence at Michael Jackson's trial, even though, apart from being a chimp, he was long dead. But the Shafta of Shaftas, the Margaret of Margarets, the most celebrated work of fiction of the last 20 years, went to Sean Hoare's "Spice Island: Beckhams to buy £6m island off the coast of Essex". Hoare didn't look entirely comfortable collecting the gong as a chorus of "It's up to you, Sean Hoare, Sean Hoare ..." broke out among the assorted hacks. Nothing to do with the story - he was on crutches after knackering his leg. Something to do with falling over a wall, apparently.

Clubber pluggerFurther news on the Sean Hoare. It became apparent why Hoare had struggled through the pain barrier to get on stage when he began plugging his new business venture - a post office in Belsize Park being converted into a night club. All Shafta winners get free VIP room membership, obviously.

Horse non-sense The big prize of the night, the Princess Margaret award, went to the Mirror's Eva Simpson. But it is only fair that some of the other nominations should share the limelight. A particular favourite was the Daily Star Sunday's "Patsy Kensit Ate Her Horse". "For the record, Pats did not eat her horse," explained Vaughan. "No, Emmerdale's scriptwriters were merely rumoured to be working on a storyline where Patsy's character Sadie King ate her horse unwittingly. As one onlooker said, 'There's more chance of Patsy Kensit winning a Bafta." At which point a concerned intake of breath could be heard around the auditorium. Hacks with a heart? Feeling sorry for Patsy Kensit? Whatever next?

Freddie doesn't go to Hollywood The Daily Star was also nominated for its front page tale that Freddie Flintoff was off to Hollywood to star in the next Flintstones movie. "Sadly the story turned out to be more a cast of Yabba Dabba Don't," said Vaughan. "Which, as you know, is caveman speak for complete bollocks."

Lost in space But the big prize went to Simpson, or "Captain of the bullshit Enterprise", as Vaughan put it, for her showbiz scoop, "Live 8 from Space". "Taking a flyer further than any flyer has ever gone before, her Live 8 From Space story touched everyone's hearts thanks to the poetry of the sub-headline, 'Planet Earth is blue, there's something you can do'," said Vaughan. "Eva went on to reveal how, in an historical satellite link-up, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev would introduce Elton John onstage with the words, 'And now, my fellow rocket man - Elton John'. Sadly, it didn't happen. A technical hitch? Or complete bollocks in the first place? All we know is that Elton ended up instead with a man who probably thought he was a Russian cosmonaut - Pete Doherty."

Untying the knot For the second year in a row, the News of the World's Rav Singh came up with the excuse of the night. After last year's "It was true at the time", rather unfortunately echoed by a number of last night's winners, we had "They will get married eventually". This after the Screws man had picked up the births, deaths and marriages award for his double prediction of the impending union of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and the forecast nuptials of Liz Hurley. "It's complete bollocks," she said.

Right Charlie A candidate for the biggest cheer of the night was the Sun's Charlie Yates, who missed out on a gong but was nominated for his story: "Corrie three quit, soap rocked by exodus of stars". The denial from Granada read: "The three actors who are 'sensationally quitting' are doing no such thing. They have all signed lengthy new contracts. A story couldn't be less true if it tried." Perhaps they should do a denial of the year award next year [see footnote].

Going down The Sunday Mirror's Ben Todd came in for some particular stick from Vaughan, although somehow managed to walk away with only one prize. Vaughan particularly enjoyed presenting a graph of Todd's showbiz reporting career so far, with a plunging, left to right diagonal line. "We've got credibility on the X axis, against time on the Y. Let's take a look ..." Todd's Shafta award-winning interview with Courtney Love, said Vaughan, was "in a nutshell exactly what we are celebrating tonight".

Black TuesdayVaughan's intro of the night: "There comes a day when a nasty legal letter arrives on your desk. At the People they call it Tuesday." Followed by: "To paraphrase Jeff Hacker from The Thick of It, it's that moment you discover you've taken a shit with your clothes on."

Johnny's flops It was only a matter of time before Vaughan had to bring up his unfortunate Channel 4 offering, Space Cadets. Twenty-nine minutes, in fact. Vaughan gamely read out some of the less flattering reviews (were there any other?). "Ally Ross in the Sun says: 'It's all aboard the Beadle II craft for hoax show Space Cadets. Or as it should be known, Waste of Space Cadets.' Ally later admitted to me, he hadn't seen the show," claimed Vaughan. Then there was Kevin O'Sullivan, who said the show "touched down in all-too familiar territory - the densely populated land of Johnny Vaughan flops". But the News of the World's Ian Hyland took the TV critic prize for poking fun at Johnny Vaughan's receding hairline.

Arctic Monkey businessVaughan had fun at the expense of Sun showbiz editor Victoria Newton's obsession with the Arctic Monkeys, which thus far had spectacularly failed to result in an interview with the band. "There's one in the Sun tomorrow," Victoria shot back from the floor, neatly taking the wind out of Johnny's sails. Only she failed to mention that the Sun's "interview" with the band was a six paragraph item in Bizarre beefed up with quotes from music magazine NME.

Skinny-dipping There was no newspaper of the year award, principally because it is always won by the Daily Star Sunday and so there was no point in having one. Instead, the inaugural celebrity magazine gong was won by OK!. But special mention to Heat magazine, whose big-selling 20 Skinniest Celebs front cover was only outsold by ... 30 Skinniest Celebs.

Blooming embarrassmentThe Sun's telly critic Ally Ross won an award and had to wear a Hawaiian lei - that's a garland of flowers to the uninitiated - on stage. An experience made all the more excruciating by the fact that he was sober all night. Has to file his column today, you understand.

Sister sightingSpotted on the night at the same table: Horatia Lawson, TV producer and sister of Nigella and Dominic, as well as Fran Newland, acting editor of Campaign and sister of former Daily Telegraph editor Martin Newland.

On the subs' bench...Award organisers might have spent the night poking fun at tabloid subs but could have done with some help from them. When Sun news editor Chris Pharo won an award his name flashed up on screen spelt as Faro. Oops.

The cheek of itHow far would a PR go for a client? Monkey overheard one publicist admitting that in order to plug a slimming product she had consented to before and after photographs of her bum appearing in the Sunday Mirror's Celeb magazine. Guess she just had to grin and bare it.

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• This footnote was appended on 29 March 2011. Charlie Yates was subsequently proved right. Coronation Street stars Kate Ford and Bill Ward left the series in 2007. Richard Fleeshman left in October 2006.